Organised Trafficking in Protected Species of Wild Flora and Fauna as a Means of Supporting Armed Conflicts and Terrorism

Abstract

Following in the wake of 9/11, anti-terrorist agencies in several countries blocked the bank accounts of numerous organizations suspected of terrorist activity or of supporting terrorism in some way. One outcome of this operation was that rebel groups and terrorist organizations immediately turned their attention to seeking new sources of income from which to fund their activities.1 Crime targeted at natural environmental resources was an area which, at that time, lay beyond the interest of those fi ghting terrorism. In the global map of crime, poaching was recognized as a dangerous phenomenon as early as the 19th century but it was not until the 1980s that the intensifi cation, scale and dynamism of this particular crime – together with its political entanglements – attracted serious attention. Thus today, we are dealing with a phenomenon the statistical image of which is both incomplete and far from clear. Most of those organizations charged with the responsibility of addressing the issue, stress that crimes against nature may be considered on a par with those of organized drug traffi cking and the illegal arms trade. One thing of which there is no doubt, is that the latter two areas of criminal activity are interlinked with the illegal trade in endangered species of fl ora and fauna. It is also clear that such natural resources are being exploited to fund armed organizations who conduct terrorist activities in support of dictatorial regimes in a number of geographical locations around the world.